Humor, politics, travel, food, children, parents, biting social issues, less biting social issues, social issues with absolutely NO bite: all will be treated equally unfairly.

Friday, December 08, 2006

No Regrets

Sports is not usually my forte, but this morning I heard about an issue with Washington Redskins player Brandon Lloyd. It seems this twenty five year old 30 million dollar wide receiver (that’s a pass catcher) had a kind of tantrum during the game last Sunday. He was asked by a reporter if he was sorry, or could guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. In response to the questions he replied that he had ‘no regrets’ about anything he had ever done in his life, and he could not guarantee it wouldn’t happen again because anything can happen —or some such nonsense.

When you are in your early twenties and have spent six or seven years doing nothing but playing football and being a star why would you have any regrets. Probably no one –including his mama, ever told him that anything he did was wrong. And probably, as a star, he didn’t have to suffer the consequences of any bad behavior. So why would he have any regrets when he has lived a life without criticism or suffering consequences.

Doesn’t this sound all too familiar? The President voices the same sentiments about different subjects. Sure he’s a little older but he’s also a guy who has never paid any price for bad behavior, at least not until the Iraq report – but even that wasn’t direct repudiation. It was subtle and easily spun by his expert spinners or as I like to call them the Merry-Go-Rounders. That’s not true you say. He was an alcoholic and had to give up drinking or lose his wife. So what, I say. He stopped drinking and kept his wife. Should that be considered paying a terrible price. Get real.

For most of his life Daddy covered for him. Whether it was not showing up for military service, screwing up business deals or becoming President without winning the popular vote, he has never admitted making a mistake. My guess is that he doesn’t know how, so instead of simply admitting error he continues to insist that everything he has done is just fine. He has no regrets either.

I don’t get macho crap. I’m a girl so that probably makes sense, but I’m also a little envious about it. I mean I really don’t get how guys get away with behaving badly and not paying any price. Like Super Sports Stars who act violently off the playing field or basketball court. They rape, rob, and pillage and get paid to go to work the next day. Or when a man gets people to invest in a business which fails. He raises millions of dollars and the business goes bust. The business closes and people who invested are out of luck. Does the man spend years trying to pay those people back and make everything better? Not a chance. Men pick themselves up and move on, often getting other people to invest in yet another business. Some would say that this is not behaving badly it’s just a business reality. When a woman starts a business and it fails it takes years for her to recover. She obsesses about the business demise—which she considers personal, and spends years getting over the embarrassment of the collapse. And, of course there are men who after years of marriage decide they want something new, or younger, so they simply kiss off the life they have lived and never give the people who are left behind any thought.

I know this is less lighthearted then my usual shpiel but it seems that lately too many people have been affected by men behaving badly. Let’s get real. Lloyd is rewarded with millions of dollars for being able to catch a ball. The President gets to be the most powerful person in the world and send people to die because he doesn’t want to say, “whew, that was stupid.” It’s not exactly the same but bad is bad, stupid is stupid, and as my mother would say, what is, Is. We’re just sayin...Iris